Abstract

Abstract The physiological workload of forest harvesting workers during summer in the south-eastern United States was evaluated by measuring work heart-rate response. The harvesting tasks considered were chainsaw felling, cable skidding, bucking and trimming at the landing, knuckle-boom loader operation, feller-buncher operation and grapple skidding. VO2 max of the workers ranged from 28 to 53 ml min−1kg−1. The WBGT ranged from 20 to 344°C during data collection. The task time-weighed, age-corrected, percent maximum heart-rate response ranged from 42-5 to 69 2°. The data indicate that the manual and semi-mechanized tasks are potentially stressful and that hotter environmental conditions increase the likelihood of higher heart-rate responses. No relationship was found between heart-rate response and three measures of static muscle strength.

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